Early Landscape Photography of the American West

Over 200 large albumen prints from the 1860s and 1870s of American Western landscape.
The locations and photographers include mammoth views of Yosemite Valley by
Carleton E. Watkins and Charles L. Weed, the route of the Union Pacific Railroad
through the Rocky Mountains by A.J. Russell, the Geographical surveys west
of the one hundredth meridian (the Wheeler survey) by Timothy O'Sullivan and
William Bell, and a collection of mammoth views by William Henry Jackson.

Collection History

This digital collection assembles many of the earliest and most important
historical photographs representing the exploration of the American west. The
majority of these holdings came to the Library in the 19th century as contemporary
works illustrated with original photographic prints, or as print portfolios.

Background

With the birth of photography in 1839, cameras began to accompany explorers
everywhere, including the American west. However, technical shortcomings required
skilled draughtsmen to translate the earliest camera images into conventional
reproductive prints for publication or distribution. Not until the 1860s was
the first practical paper photographs of the West achieved -- by rival camera
artists Carleton E. Watkins (1829-1916) and Charles L. Weed (1824-1903). Their
mammoth albumen prints of California's Yosemite Valley were exhibited and published
internationally, introducing the grandeur of the West, and its otherworldliness,
with the truthful realism granted by photography.

Andrew Joseph Russell (1830-1902), an ex-Army photographer who had trained
to be a painter, spent the 1868-1869 season with the Union Pacific Railroad
as the route moved west from Nebraska toward Promontory Point in Utah. His smaller
albumen prints were issued by the railroad in an elaborate presentation volume
- the Library's copy came from the personal library of Samuel J. Tilden.

The United States Geographical Surveys West of the 100th Meridian produced
a similarly handsome published album of original albumen prints from expeditions
in 1871-73 photographed by Timothy O'Sullivan (1840-1882), a Civil War photographer,
and William Bell (1830-1910). Additional photographs from the Survey appeared
in special atlases published to accompany official reports, acquired routinely
by the Library as government documents.

William Henry Jackson (1843-1942), also a self-taught practitioner, photographed
for the Union Pacific Railroad, and joined the Hayden Survey of Yellowstone,
which was made a national park in 1872. At the end of the decade Jackson opened
a studio in Denver and at the end of the century he was a principal of the Detroit
Publishing Company.

NYPL Digital Gallery provides free and open access to over 800,000 images digitized from primary sources and printed rarities in the vast collections of The New York Public Library, including drawings, illuminated manuscripts, historical maps, vintage posters, rare prints and photographs, illustrated books, printed ephemera, and more.